"About 1.00pm today Ambulance and Police Rescue were responded to Mt Piddington, Mt Victoria, in relation to a climbing accident. Two people have been injured and both have been transported to Hospital by Ambulance helicopter. Police inquiries into the accident are ongoing. Hornes Point is currently closed while investigations continue."

On 2/01/2013 bobic wrote:>On 2/01/2013 richo6 wrote:>>save your total speculation... idiot>>Why is he an idiot? I reckon the first thought in most climber's minds>when they hear of these things is what went wrong.

Which is fine - what is wrong is doing it on a forum which journalists will trawl, misunderstand and misquote out of context.

Heard from one person involved and was stated that "we are ok". They have broken bones but nothing life threatening from what i heard. I don't know any details on exactly what happend.
Lets cut the BS on this thread hope for a speedy recovery for the party involved.

quote: Critical injuries for one, serious for the other. Both still alive as far as I know. Belay failure on ledge above Eternity after hold blew on second pitch of something. Both fell to the base. Very sobering.

Two rock climbers had to be rescued after suffering numerous broken bones during a fall near Mt Victoria in the Blue Mountains yesterday.
About 1pm, Wednesday 2 January 2013, a 31-year-old woman and 32-year-old man were scaling a 35 metre cliff at Hornes Point on Mt Piddington when the man slipped off the cliff.
He fell 18 metres to the base of the cliff and sustained a compound fracture to his ankle and a fractured leg.
During the incident the woman was pulled from her position and fell 12 metres to the ground where she sustained numerous fractures; head and internal injuries.
A number of other climbers came to their aid before emergency services were contacted.
Officers from the Police Rescue Squad and the Ambulance Rescue Helicopter attended the scene with doctors and paramedics being winched in to treat the injured pair.
They were airlifted to Westmead Hospital where the woman is believed to be in a critical condition while the man is in a stable condition and undergoing surgery.
A crime scene was established at the cliff and examined by specialist forensic officers.
Investigations into the circumstances surrounding the incident are continuing with police waiting to speak to the injured climbers."

The crime scene stuff seems really odd, although I think that might be standard practice where there is the chance someone might die, just in case there is an inquest.

Is there any reason why the names of these two are being kept private? I've been fielding several phone calls and emails all day from worried climbers and parents wanting to know who it was. With everyone away on climbign trips it seems communication between loved ones and their climbing friends has been a bit lacking. If anyone hasn't phoned home to say they are safe PLEASE DO SO so your friends and family are not worried.

Speculation is something we all do. Voicing of opinions and thoughts on climbing forums is something we do too. (I noticed you didn't hesitate voicing your insulting opinion here.) My "total speculation" was flagged as such and in hindsight, pretty close to the truth. Calling somebody an idiot for rational conjecture does not seem to be a clever or polite response.

On 2/01/2013 Olbert wrote:>Which is fine - what is wrong is doing it on a forum which journalists>will trawl, misunderstand and misquote out of context.
Two short sentances flagged explicitly as speculation and containing no new facts is not something that even a fourth rate journalist would stoop to. Besides we can't censor all discussion of the small chance of a journalist misquoting out posts.

On 3/01/2013 FatCanyoner wrote:>The crime scene stuff seems really odd, although I think that might be>standard practice where there is the chance someone might die, just in>case there is an inquest.
I does seem odd but I think your reasoning is correct. Given that two related people of opposite sex were injured (one badly) in unknown circumstances (as far as the police are concerned) I would expect that such behaviour is sensible from their procedural point of view.

On 3/01/2013 nmonteith wrote:>Is there any reason why the names of these two are being kept private?>I've been fielding several phone calls and emails all day from worried>climbers and parents wanting to know who it was. With everyone away on>climbign trips it seems communication between loved ones and their climbing>friends has been a bit lacking. If anyone hasn't phoned home to say they>are safe PLEASE DO SO so your friends and family are not worried.
Unfortunately those who haven't communicated with their friends and family are often the same ones who aren't reading online forums. From what I heard Mt York campground is pretty packed but even so it still won't mean most campers are aware.

On the climbing geeky side of things if a FF2 rips the belayer off the belay after a significant stretch of the rope it is quite possible that the belayer will hit the ground faster than the climber.